1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to content management and, in particular, to a content management system and method for a portable device.
2. Description of the Related Art
Recent advances in wireless communications, mobile devices, streaming technologies, and compression techniques have made possible the broad distribution of multimedia content, such as digital music, image, video, and games, over the Internet. Mobile devices such as cellular phones are rapidly becoming the means to extend the range of communication and entertainment channels.
Multimedia contents are provided by Internet websites and a subscriber device, such as a personal computer (PC), personal digital assistant (PDA). In addition, a mobile device can download multimedia contents.
Typically, the downloaded multimedia content is managed in a form of a list for a user's convenience such that the device monitors newly downloaded, deleted, and/or modified multimedia content items and updates the multimedia contents list.
In order to efficiently manage a multimedia content list, the device checks the changes in the list of multimedia content periodically.
In the case of a PC operated with a high performance processor, the periodic checks on the multimedia content items are not burdensome. However, in the case of a mobile device operated under battery power, the modification checking operation is limited for the purpose of saving power. Also, the frequent modification checking operation occupies a large amount of system resource, resulting in degradation in the performance of the device.
For example, when an MPEG-1 Audio Layer 3 (MP3) player is downloading an MP3 file from a website and the modification checking period of the MP3 player is set to 5 minutes, the MP3 player cannot play or delete the MP3 file even if the MP3 file is downloaded already. Also, even when an MP3 file is deleted, the MP3 file remains in the MP3 files list, resulting in inconvenience for the user.
In the meantime, if the file checking is frequently performed, the battery life of a portable device runs short quickly and degrades multitasking performance, especially when equipped with a low capability processor.